How to Prep Your Camping Equipment for the First Trip of the Season
Preparing for your first campout of the season can be an exercise in frustration. It’s difficult to remember that you have restocked fuel for your camp stove, batteries, and other consumables from one camping season to the next.
Did the tarp get put away with the tent, and where is the stake bag? It seems intuitive that one would store camping gear together. However, when several people are stowing and stocking camping equipment and supplies, it’s easy to overlook things you’ll need in the outdoors.
Inventory Your Camping Equipment
Inventorying your camping equipment will require pulling all your gear out ahead of time. However, assembling it all in one place will allow you to inspect each piece of equipment. You’ll also be able to check if you need fuel for your camp stove, charcoal for a grill, or gas for your camper.
If you’ll be tent camping, it needs to be checked for tears, and the stakes and poles used to erect your tent need to be located. If you use a tent fly or tarps on your camp set up, they, too, need to be checked for tears. You also need to check and see if all their parts are with them.
Being in the woods for a night or two requires food, and cooking food requires equipment. You’ll need cooking utensils, cooking pieces, and serving pieces, even when you’re sitting beside a creek in the mountains. Taking stock of camping accessories before setting off will assure you have what you need when you get to your destination.
Clean Dirty Equipment
Getting to your campsite and setting up your tent, only to find it is full of sand from your last camping trip, isn’t fun. A broom is not a common item to take camping unless you camp in a trailer.
So, the best way to keep this situation from occurring is to clean your camping equipment at the end of the camping season. Then, when you are ready to go this season, so is your camping equipment. But if you weren’t in the habit of doing that last season, be sure to check your equipment before you leave so there are no dirty surprises when you get there.
Test and Repair Camping Equipment
Camp stoves can be finicky, whether they use liquid fuel or propane gas. They can be even worse if they’re not kept clean, so test your stove and propane lanterns before packing them up to take to the woods.
The same goes for your tent. If you check it for tears and abrasions at the end of your camping season, you’ll have time to make repairs before you need them again. However, even if you take these extra steps, checking your equipment before your first trip of the camping season is a good practice. A quick inspection will also let you know if all the poles and stakes of your tent are included when you pack your gear.
Camping Gear Storage
The easy way to keep your camping gear in one place is with an Out-In-About Box™, designed to hold all your kitchen gear, tents, tent parts, and other items you take camping with you. The drop-down side makes this piece of camping equipment easy to access from the back of your pickup truck or your trailer pass thru storage area.
The drop-down side creates a shelf you can use for meal prep or as a place to set up your outdoor camping kitchen. Each of your cooking pieces will fit on the adjustable shelves. The stainless steel and aluminum construction means you will be using this camping storage box for many years to come.
The padded side handles make moving the Out-In-About Box™ easy to load and move around once you reach your camping spot. Half the battle of a good camping trip is getting to your site with the few creature comforts that make camping trips a little more comfortable.
A hot cup of coffee around the campfire is hard to do if you forget the coffee pot and the coffee, too. The best way to get to the woods with what you need is to take stock of your equipment, supplies, and camping games to make your adventure memorable before packing the car for your trip to the woods.
Download the Essential Camping Checklist to make sure you have all your must have items ready!
